SEO for Estate Planning Lawyers: Expand Your Probate Law Practice

SEO for estate planning lawyers includes implementing various SEO tactics. Some of those include proper keyword research, content creation, content optimization, link building, and local SEO. 

SEO is the primary channel that leverages organic traffic to gather leads and clients for your attorney business. As more people search for legal services online, optimizing your business website has never been more important, so you don’t leave anything on the table. 

However, most legal businesses aren’t sure whether they can do SEO on their own or if hiring an SEO agency or dedicated freelance professionals is smarter. So, that’s why I created an ultimate guide about SEO for estate planning lawyers that will cover:

• What is SEO for estate planning lawyers
• Best DIY SEO strategies to consider 
• Must-have SEO tools for all estate planning lawyer businesses
• Solution for those who want to hand SEO to true professionals

By the end of reading this article, you will understand whether SEO is something you can do on your own or whether you should hire a dedicated professional to help you.

What Is SEO for Estate Planning Lawyers?

SEO for estate planning lawyers includes implementing different search engine optimization tactics to help you drive more traffic, improve your online visibility, and gather more leads for your law firm business. It covers everything from topical map creation and keyword research to content writing, on-page optimization, local SEO, and E-E-A-T optimization. 

Why Do Estate Planning Attorneys Need Search Engine Optimization?

Estate planning attorneys need search engine optimization since SEO is the biggest driver of traffic and leads for the estate planning lawyer niche. Certain businesses still spend tens of thousands of dollars monthly on paid traffic channels that continue to burn cash but yield poor results. SEO is an evergreen channel that can help you gather leads for your law firm business for years to come. 

Paid traffic sources only last as long as you keep paying for them. That’s why investing in a law firm SEO professional or agency with a keen eye for leveraging different search engine optimization tactics has never been more important for estate planning lawyer businesses. Estate planning SEO can help you build a sustainable business with a much smaller monthly and yearly budget compared to paid traffic sources.

DIY Effective Estate Planning Lawyer SEO Strategies to Consider

If you want to try SEO on your own for your estate planning lawyer business, here are the most important search engine optimization tactics you must consider.

‍Keyword Research

Keyword research is a process of finding and selecting phrases people search for when wanting to find your law firm services. It requires a deep understanding of your target audience so you know what content and keywords to target to gather as many leads for your law firm business as possible. 

Keyword research is primarily done through tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush, which have a vast keyword base for different markets. Keywords can be broken into different types, the most basic being informational, navigational, and transactional. 

Start by identifying SEO keywords your target audience uses when searching online to find your legal service. Then, proceed with the following step, which is content creation with SEO optimization in mind to maximize visibility and ranking for those pages.

Content Creation

Content creation is the next logical step after targeted keyword research. It includes writing content for specific keywords and search intent your audience will resonate with. The content creation process overlaps with the content optimization strategy, which we will cover next. 

It requires you to research what your potential clients want to learn or potential problems they need to solve for very specific keywords with the same search intent. The easiest way to understand what to write about for the specific keyword/topic/search intent is to type your primary keyword on Google and see what the first 10 results are writing about. 

Identify topics in these blog posts and compile the list of topics your targeted post should cover. Don’t just copy other people’s content, but rather try to make it either more concise or comprehensive based on your expertise, and then try to add some new information that can be useful for your target audience. 

Think about the problems your potential clients need to solve, and focus on creating the best possible resource on the web for that. Then, seamlessly integrate your services in the post to make them reach out to you for the legal services you are offering.

Content Optimization

Content optimization is the process of making your content SEO-friendly so Google understands and ranks it better for the keywords you would like to appear in the search. It includes everything from proper heading structure to strategically placing keywords, entities, and related phrases throughout your content. 

Some additional things to consider include providing specific media such as images, videos, and GIFs throughout your content to make it more comprehensive and of higher quality. You can find solid content optimization recommendations by using tools such as Surfer SEO, Marketmuse, NeuronWrier, and others.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO also overlaps a bit with the content optimization step. However, for the purposes of this guide, we will primarily focus on meta-data optimization. On-page SEO requires you to carefully consider how you are going to optimize your title tags, meta descriptions, URL slugs, image ALT text, and even your H1. 

Some SEO professionals prefer to strategically implement the primary keyword they are trying to rank for in these places. Others prefer to focus on content readability and boosting click-through rate (CTR) through search results using specific copywriting principles. Ideally, use both to make your meta both search engine and reader-friendly. 

‍Link Building

Link building is the process of acquiring links from other websites that point to your website. As with everything else, there are white hat and black hat tactics to acquire links back to your website. Some of the most popular link building tactics include:

• Guest blogging
• Broken link building
• Skyscraper technique
• Backlink exchanges
• Content marketing
• Creating infographics
• Resource page link building
• HARO (Help A Reporter Out)
• Social media promotion
• Directory submissions
• Commenting on blogs and forums
• Creating case studies and white papers

Local SEO

Local SEO is one of the best ways estate law firm businesses can gather leads through organic search. Here are some of the most important local search SEO tips to consider to rank your legal website higher on SERPs:

• Start with the Google My Business (GMB) profile – Creating a Google My Business profile is probably the first step you should undertake to improve your organic search rankings for local searches. This profile provides the most important information about your law firm’s business. These include NAP, which stands for name, address, and phone number (but working hours as well for this specific context). Make sure your GMB profile is always up-to-date. Also, contextually include relevant local keywords in your business description, together with reviews and photos.
• Leverage citations – Citations represent online mentions of your business address, name, and phone number (NAP) on other web webplaces. The strategy of creating citations is an excellent way to improve your online visibility and build trust with your potential clients. Just make sure this information is the same across all citation sources. Some citation sources include review sites, directories, and social media platforms.
• Target local keywords on your website – Make sure to identify and leverage the power of local keywords on your website. Create specific pages that target different local places so you can rank for different communities. This not only helps you gather more leads but also helps Google understand the limits of your services in terms of distance. It’s also an excellent way to build topical authority if you make sure to tailor your content for each of these separate places properly. 
• Gather reviews – Ask your clients to leave honest reviews on your Google My Business profile and other review sites. This can help you attract more clients by leveraging the powerful concept of social proof, which is heavily discussed in the copywriting community as the go-to strategy for improving conversions and increasing trust.
• Leverage local schema markup – This is a type of structured data that helps search engines better and more easily understand essential information about your business. This, of course, includes essentials such as your address, hours of operation, business name, and phone number.

For those seeking tailored local SEO strategies, consider how localized services can impact your law firm. For instance, if you’re targeting specific locations, it’s beneficial to reference local professionals as examples. 

A prime example includes the Estate Planning Attorneys In Thurmont, MD, who have effectively used local SEO to dominate their regional market. By examining their approach, you can gain insights into how to structure your local SEO efforts to cater specifically to the communities you serve.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO can also help you improve the online visibility of your legal practice. However, technical SEO is mostly reserved for big websites with thousands of pages where small improvements on each of those pages in terms of speed or some other metric can drastically help the entire website perform better on SERPs. 

Consider metrics such as website speed and mobile friendliness (probably the most important), amongst others. 

E-E-A-T Optimization

The E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Optimizing for E-E-A-T requires you to make changes to your website that will subjectively improve the scores of each of these categories. 

Some of the best practices include making sure your content is factually correct and unique, offering a decent level of unique experience and expertise, and allowing users to trust your website. 

Make sure your content creators have proper qualifications and knowledge for the topics they write about. Ensure your content is comprehensive, unique, and accurate. Demonstrate honesty, reliability, and safety across your entire website to increase overall trustworthiness. These are just some general guidelines to follow for E-E-A-T optimization.

Tracking Performance

The last strategy you must consider is proper performance tracking. This includes tracking and monitoring the performance of your search engine optimization efforts to identify areas for improvement. This is just to make sure your current SEO strategy remains effective and efficient. 

Make sure to track your keywords rankings, website traffic, and conversion rates amongst others. Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4.0 are the tools you should leverage to help track performance for your current SEO strategy.

SEO Tools for Estate Planning Lawyers

Here is the list of core effective SEO tools almost every estate planning law firm business website should leverage:

• Google Analytics – Excellent for detailed insight into your attorney’s website traffic, specific performance metrics, and user behavior to optimize your website’s user experience and SEO.
• Ahrefs – This tool is well known for its vast backlink base, keyword research, and competitor analysis features for better search engine visibility. 
• Semrush – It is almost the same as Ahrefs, but it contains a better keyword base for European markets, whereas Ahrefs stands out in the USA and primarily English-speaking countries.
• Screaming Frog SEO spider – Screaming Frog is a must-have SEO tool that simulates how a Google bot crawls your website, and it gathers specific insights for potential improvements in broken links, redirects, and different metadata.
• Google Search Console – Essential for maintaining, monitoring, and troubleshooting your business website. It provides detailed insights into your crawling, indexing, and website’s organic traffic.
• Marketmuse – This SEO tool leverages AI and NLP technologies to extract entities, keywords, and phrases for specific keywords you would like to rank for. It is essential for content optimization.
• Link Whisper – A plugin developed by Spencer Haws, also founder of the Niche Pursuits blog, podcast, and YouTube channel. It recommends smart internal linking strategies and automatically links desired pages in one click based on your anchor text and location preferences.

Maximizing SEO for Estate Planning Lawyers 

SEO is by far the most effective digital marketing channel for helping estate planning attorneys reach their target audience and gather leads for their business. You can easily leverage different SEO strategies to attract more organic search traffic, improve your online visibility, and gather more leads. 

This is primarily done through proper keyword research, content and law firm marketing, content optimization, link building, attractive website design, and local SEO efforts, amongst other tactics.This is why it has never been more important to hire a competitive SEO professional with a proven track record of boosting the online visibility of estate planning attorneys’ websites. Partner with our digital marketing agency to maximize the effectiveness of SEO campaigns so you can gather more leads and clients in the shortest time possible without breaking the bank.

Frequently Asked Questions